“So much for quiet meditation,” she muttered. “I’ll have to consider this for a while. You two will mind your tongues and behave, do you understand me?”
“Yes, Rosethorn,” they chorused.
She set off down the path back to the caravansary, her pace brisk. Briar held Evvy back until Rosethorn was out of earshot. He then demanded quietly, “You couldn’t have told me this before?”
“I didn’t dare,” Evvy said as they followed Rosethorn, walking more slowly. “It was last night. We were seeing him off. Then we were going back and I was so tired. It’s not like there’s anything we can do.”
Briar rubbed the top of his head, looking tired. “I just hope she feels the same way.”
“I’ll be glad when we leave Yanjing,” Evvy told him. “I’m scared we’ll trip over something really bad. It hasn’t happened yet, but I keep expecting it.”
“There are shrines to the gods in the walls all around the inside of the caravansary,” Briar said. “First thing we do when we get back inside the gates, you take an offering to that Heibei luck god of yours. A nice offering, mind. And you ask him to get us out of here safely!”
Evvy beamed at her teacher. “That’s a splendid idea.” She had a piece of white jade that would be perfect, and a piece of lapis lazuli for Kanzan the Merciful. Even gods couldn’t be able to resist such fine bits of stone. She would feel better once she had enlisted their help. Heibei had to like her more than he did the emperor, who handed out bad luck to so many, and how could Kanzan like someone who hurt and killed so many people?
At the back of her mind she felt a dark flicker of fear — what about the gods of Gyongxe, and Parahan’s gods, who also had something at stake now? She stomped on that flicker until it didn’t bother her anymore. Prayers and presents to her two favorite gods would fix all of this, just as giving Parahan’s news to Rosethorn had meant passing a hateful burden to someone who could handle it. She could concentrate on the journey, and only the journey.
Later in the afternoon the three of them were cutting vegetables into a soup to share with some fellow travelers when they heard the thunder of horses approaching the gate. They drew together, dropping their knives into the bowls of vegetables.
Caravansary guards ran to the gate, iron-shod staves in their hands. An archer on the wall turned and whistled three sharp notes that sent the men away from the road as a company of imperial troops, accompanied by three mages, rode in. Ten of them galloped through the caravansary in the direction of the rear gate.
Evvy felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest. “Relax,” Rosethorn murmured softly.
Rajoni and Changdao, the master of the caravansary, walked up to the haughty man who appeared to be in command. Changdao and Rajoni bowed deeply.
The noble did not speak at all. The younger man who carried his banner did that. The older mage who rode next to him made a series of motions with his hands, forcing Briar to look away. Evvy knew he could see the magic being done. When the bannerman spoke, his voice was loud, much louder than it would have been without magical help. She was certain it was being heard everywhere inside the caravansary walls.
“Travelers and those who keep this place, attend. A valuable slave of southern Realms blood has escaped from the grounds of the Winter Palace!” the bannerman proclaimed. “Remain in your places as the imperial warriors search. No harm will be done unless you are sheltering this runaway. Any who do shelter this Parahan of Kombanpur will receive the utmost of the emperor’s displeasure — those persons, their parents, grandparents, families, cousins, to the third degree of relationship both older and younger, no one will be spared.”
“Mila, save us,” Rosethorn whispered.
“Those who give us useful information will receive great rewards and advancement at the hands of our glorious lord, Wielder of the Dragon Sword, Holder of the Orb of Wisdom, Emperor Weishu of the Long Dynasty,” the bannerman continued. “Go about your tasks unless our warriors require your assistance.”
The soldiers dismounted, leaving the horses with a few of their number, and dispersed among the stables, supply buildings, and housing. Only the captain, his bannerman, and the mage who had amplified his speech remained where they had halted. Changdao stayed with them, though they did not talk to him at all. Rajoni trotted off in the direction of the brightly painted Trader house carts, presumably to act as middle person between the soldiers and the caravan.
“Back to work,” Rosethorn said. “Not you, Evvy, not chopping, anyway.” Evvy looked at her hands and had to agree. They were shaking too much for her to risk picking up a knife.
Briar sent her for a bucket of water. She got it, looking at the ground rather than the warriors. She almost dropped it on him when she saw three soldiers enter their set of rooms.
“The cats!” she cried. “They’ll knock over the gate stones!” She put the bucket down and ran to their quarters before Briar or Rosethorn could grab her. Two of the soldiers were looking into the bedchambers. One knelt just outside the line of gate stones and was scratching Ball under the chin.
“I’m sorry,” Evvy said. It was hard to think badly of anyone who petted her cats, even if it was Ball, who liked everyone. “I just wanted to warn you, the stones are magicked so they stay on that side of them.”
“There’s a nice trick,” the soldier said with admiration. “Useful when you’re traveling, I’ll wager. But … do they run alongside, or how do they keep up?”
Evvy showed him the carry-baskets and the basket the cats used as a privy. He told her about his own cats, to the point where she almost forgot to be terrified. She walked out with the three of them and, once the inspection of the caravansary was done, waved good-bye as they rode away.
Rosethorn and Briar walked up behind her as the other occupants of the caravansary took deep breaths and talked a little too loudly in their relief. “Did they try to get into our mage stuff?” Briar asked.
Evvy shook her head. “Not even enough to get hurt by the protecting spells,” she said, “not like those yujinons yesterday, looking into our bags like we’d bundled a big man into one.”
“Charmed by the cats again?” Rosethorn asked. Evvy nodded. “How many times have we used checking on those creatures to keep an eye on soldiers inspecting our things?”
Briar put an arm around Evvy’s shoulders. “They earn their keep, those cats.”
Rosethorn gently tweaked Evvy’s ear. “They do indeed.”
When Evvy turned to protest an unearned ear tweak, Rosethorn tweaked her own ear, then laid her forefinger beside her nose. That was a sign Briar had taught them both, a bit of thief sign from his youth that meant uncanny doings, or mage work. The tweak of her own ear was notice to both of her younger companions that Rosethorn suspected the soldiers had planted spy spells in the caravansary.
Evvy growled.
“You’re getting hungry,” Briar said wisely. He didn’t resent being spied on the way Rosethorn and Evvy did; he expected it. He did sigh when Rosethorn shook her finger, telling him silently he wasn’t to try to find and dismantle the spy spells. Evvy giggled despite her resentment. “Let’s finish working on that soup.”
After the soldiers’ departure the Traders retreated to their house carts. Evvy didn’t blame them. Too often, when nations were in upheaval and looking for someone to blame, they singled out Traders. In return, the Traders had strict rules in their dealings with outsiders. If Briar’s sister Daja, and in fact Briar and all three of his sisters, had not done some notable services for Traders now and then, these eastern Traders would not be so willing to help them now.